Q. I have an older Meyer lemon that produces significant amounts of fruit most years.  However, I understand it should be pruned as a tree with one major trunk.  Mine has two trunks and each fork starts just a few inches off the ground. All trunks develop substantial sucker growth.  Should I eliminate all but one trunk or try to prune the suckers each year from all trunks? Citrus with narrow crotch between two major “trunks” A. There are always exceptions to rules. Your decision to break the “one trunk rule” depends on the “quality” of the “fork” you’re talking about. In most cases, prune it to a single trunk when it is young with scaffold branches originating at about knee height. This may take a few years.You will have problems with that crotch later as it gets heavier and has to hold more fruit. Get rid of the inside one. I know it is large now but it will help later on. Also remove all sucker growth up to about your knees when it gets tall enough.             There are two reasons for pruning fruit trees. One is for improving its structure. This is called “training”. The other is for improving fruit production. Citrus seldom needs pruning to improve fruit production but it does require pruning when it is young to improve its overall branching structure. Good structure makes a tree sturdy enough to hold the weight of its limbs and fruit without breaking.             If the fork does not have a wide angle between two trunks, approximately 60° or more, then remove the weaker of the two. If the angle is too narrow, over time the fork may not be strong enough to support the weight of older branches plus a load of fruit. Citrus, however, has stronger wood than most fruit trees in this regard. It is a judgement call. Narrow crotch angles like the top right and left can be problems later on when the tree is expected to hold alot of weight.             If you are not sure, send me a picture of this fork and I can give you a better opinion. Otherwise, if you think it’s wide enough then don’t worry about it. With time the sucker growth should stop or at least slow down. Remove suckers by pulling them in early spring rather than cutting them with a shears. If you pull on them when you first see them they will easily pop from the trunk or limb. If you wait too long, they will not.

Q. I have daffodils and Dutch iris bulbs shooting out new flowers this last November. Each year they produce leaves in the fall but never flowers. Are they confusing this time of year with spring?  What should I do? A. This type of oddity, flowering at the wrong time of year, happens with some plants. Sometimes we see it in fruit trees like apples or pears and even grapes. Plants are more in tune to their environment than animals and these environmental clues can sometimes mislead them.             Plants that originate from temperate climates, climates with seasons, use two major environmental “triggers” to gauge when to flower and produce fruit. These two environmental triggers are cool or cold temperatures and unbroken darkness for long periods. This works great in the spring.             A primary mission of plants is to survive and produce offspring. Producing flowers will produce fruit that produces seed. Spring flowering, not fall flowering, is extremely important for temperate plants. Flowering in the fall does not give most plants enough time to produce the seed needed for reproduction.             If one or both triggers are activated at the wrong time the plant may be “tricked” into thinking it’s spring. Every fall the length of nighttime mimics the length of nighttime in the spring. That’s one trigger. If there are unusually cold temperatures in the fall, then both triggers could activate flowering. What to do?  Remove the flowers when you see them. Otherwise, leave the plant alone. Flowering in the fall is not a big deal but fall fruit and seed production is a huge drain on plant food supplies needed for next spring.

Q. What are the proper measures when transplanting a mature 10-15 foot (3.3-5 m) tall pomegranate tree. Once transplanted, what to do that betters the chances of a successful transplant? A. In a few words, take as much of the roots with it when you move it. That is tough to do by hand and rough on the tree regardless. Use a backhoe or, better yet, a hydraulically operated tree spade. There are a couple of arborists in Las Vegas who own tree spades who could do it for you. A tree spade is by far the best way to move a larger tree.  See a tree spade in action             Digging it up and moving it by hand is difficult unless it has been on drip irrigation or prepared for this move one year in advance. A successful transplanting moves as much of the roots as possible to its new location and at the right time of year.             Now, December through February, is the right time of year. Drip irrigation keeps tree roots closer to the trunk. With rainfall, or a landscape irrigated by sprinklers, tree roots spread wherever there is water up to twice the height of the tree.             This means a 10-foot tree might, ideally, spread its roots 20 feet from its trunk. Unfortunately, the most important roots to transplant with the tree are roots growing at the outer half of its root spread. That’s not possible.             Older trees on drip irrigation, or irrigated with a depression around the trunk, have a better chance of survival because more of their roots are close to the trunk. You may not have many options open to you so let’s cover what to do, worst-case scenario. Reducing canopy size for transplanting. Taken from LE Cook at http://www.lecooke.com/cms/tree-care/care-of-bareroot/358.html             First, cut the limbs back so they are three or four feet tall.  You must remove at least 1/3 of the tree’s canopy when transplanting. Next, dig a vertical trench around the entire tree deep enough to sever all the roots in the top 18 to 24 inches. This trench should be at least 2 feet from the trunk.             Dig the new hole for the tree. Dig it twice the width of the trenched hole and about 6 inches deeper. Mix compost with soil taken from the new hole. Use this soil mix when replanting the tree. I am not a huge fan of the product but add Super Thrive to the backfill. It’s relatively cheap insurance.             Undercut the trenched tree so it moves freely back and forth. It would be perfect if all the soil attached to the roots was moved with the tree. But most of the soil will fall free from the roots in when it is moved. Not perfect but it’s okay.             Lift the tree from the hole and cut any remaining roots with pruning shears (best) or very sharp shovel. If most of the soil fell from the roots during the transplant, get the tree into its new hole a watered as quickly as possible. Minutes of delay could prove important in the speed of its recovery.         Begin backfilling around the roots with the soil mix you created and water from a hose at the same time. The soil should be a slurry and fill all of voids around the roots. Filling these soil voids is important.             Equally important is to stake this tree so it’s roots are immobilized for one growing season. Construct a basin around the tree at least four inches deep and on top of the new hole. Fill this basin after transplanting three times over a period of 1 to 3 days. A good job results in a transplant planted solidly in the ground.             Water once a week, filling the basin, for the first month. After the first month, water it as you would normally or as needed.

            The most frequently asked question asked in 2016 concerned fig trees. Readers wanted to know why their fig trees did not produce good fruit. Either the fruit dropped from the tree when they were small or the fruit clung to the tree and never became large, but remained small, hard and dry. If not given enough water the fruit will stay small, hard and dry             There are hundreds of local fig trees that produced fruit consistently for 20 plus years in our Las Vegas Valley. In most cases, these problems are a human management problem, not the fault of the tree or the climate. If not enough water reaches the fruit they are like any other fruit, the fruit remains small. In this case hard and dry as well and inedible.             Fruits of fig trees are “multiple fruits”, similar in basic structure to fruit of pineapple and mulberry. Multiple fruits have dozens of flowers produced in a cluster at the end of a fleshy stem. Each flower produces fruit which expand, growing into each other, as they get larger. These type of growth produces a single, large fruit composed of dozens of smaller fruits. Fig fruit are “multiple fruits” like pineapple or mulberry that have been turned “inside out” with the soft single fruits on the inside and the “core” on the outside             Fig fruits are strange. When picturing fig fruits, think of a pineapple turned “inside out”, miniaturized, with “fleshy moist fruits” on the inside and a more durable “core” on the outside. Pretty cool adaptation for dry, harsh climates.             Figs originally came from drier parts of Asia, transported to the Middle East, perhaps over 10,000 years ago. Growing figs by humans predates wheat. Once transported and grown in deserts, they could no longer survive and produce fruit without additional water. The tree would survive and grow but could not support a crop of fruit without additional water. They needed irrigation to be productive.             Fast-forward to the Mojave Desert and the planting of fig trees. Fig trees do not need much water to survive year after year. But like any other fruit tree, the tree needs additional water to support a crop of figs. As the tree gets larger, it needs more and more water to support this larger tree plus a crop of figs. Cacti and figs are not a good mix in a desert landscape. The figs need lots of water for fruit production while the cacti don’t.             If your fig fruits are not a good quality it is most likely not enough water. If the tree is allowed to get big, and they will, add more drip emitters or enlarge the water basin around the tree. Put a four-inch layer of wood chips around the base. Or make them smaller. Fig trees like this 15 year old fig can take some hard pruning to keep its size small.             Fig trees can be pruned without mercy. They will recover from a stump if they must. Keeping the tree smaller requires less water for irrigation. Prune them smaller in December and January but keep some of the growth from 2016 if you want an early crop of fruit.

Q. I planted a 24 inch boxed “Ped Push” Chinese pistache. After it was in the ground I removed the nursery planting stake. Now the trunk has a curve in it. Will properly re-staking help straighten the trunk? A. The tree requires staking but not because the trunk is not straight. This will correct itself, on its own, over time. The tree requires continued staking for other reasons. Unfortunately, the production nursery that grew this tree did a bad job. The retail nursery that bought this tree got it at a good price. They are both at fault because they passed these problems on to you and they knew better!             Looking at the pictures it seems like you did a very good job planting. I like the idea of the berms around the planted area to hold water and help push that water deep enough to water the entire roots.             Remember that the berm should be about 4 inches high and the bottom of the burned area should be as flat as possible or all the water will build up on the low side resulting in roots that get plenty of water on the low side but not enough on the high side.             To compensate for uneven soil, the berm must actually be taller than 4 inches; taller on the low side and shorter on the high side.             I want to point out something to you about the tree and it will relate back to the staking. Look at the trunk of the tree. Notice that it does not have a lot of taper to the trunk. What I mean by taper, the trunk diameter does not change a lot along its entire length.             This is the primary reason it does not stand on its own very well and will require staking now. In a strong wind, because of the lack of taper to the trunk, it is very possible this tree could snap in two. If the trunk had taper, it is much less likely to snap in a strong wind. This has to do with a lot of engineering mumbo-jumbo.             The reason this tree does not have good trunk taper is because of how it was grown in the production nursery, not the retail nursery. But I will fault the retail nursery for buying these types of trees.             They know better but they got a good deal on it and they pass the savings on to you, hopefully, and you probably bought it because it was inexpensive compared to others and you didn’t know any different.             Trees with a lack of taper on the trunk are grown too close together in the field, they are pruned incorrectly to encourage height at the expense of a lack of taper. Then they stake the trees because they cannot support their own canopy weight because of a lack of taper and this problem is passed on to you. And I challenge these nurseries to prove me wrong! I know I’m right and it makes me mad to see these kinds of production practices all because they want to make a buck.             What can you do to correct this problem? You’re going to have to stake this tree or it will snap in a strong wind. Guaranteed.             Where to stake it is important. The bending and flexing of the trunk is important in the development of taper. If the tree is staked so the trunk cannot move back and forth, e.g. flexing and bending, this will contribute further to this problem.             Secure the trunk to stakes so that the bottom of the trunk does not move. You do not want the bottom of the trunk going into the ground to move. You want the top of the tree to flex back and forth, but not the bottom.             The trunk should be secured high enough so that it does not snap but the top of the tree can still move. This would be roughly about halfway up the trunk.             Secondly, if any shoots grow from the trunk, do not prune them off!! Let them grow until they get about pencil diameter and then prune them off from the trunk leaving no stubs behind.             New shoots should always be allowed to grow from the trunk because they help contribute to trunk taper. But remove them when they get older, always allowing the young ones to remain. Once the tree no longer requires staking, then keep the trunk clean of any new growth and remove it as soon as it appears.             If you by any large trees, 15 gallon and above, in the future I hope you will consider trunk taper or the growth of side shoots along the trunk when purchasing a tree avoid nurseries that sell inferior plant quality.

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Q. I have an apple tree that produced some apples but they didn’t have any color or taste. Anna Apple will develop a red blush when they’re ripe. A.If you don’t know what apple it is, it must be difficult to know when to harvest. Apples do not get sweeter once they are removed from the tree. Even a green apple like Mutsu or Granny Smith will change color from a green apple green to a lighter green color when it matures. If these apples are getting a blush of red, you might want to wait longer to harvest them and see if they turn completely red. Seeds inside the apple turn dark brown when the apple is close to maturity. But the sugar content may increase if it stays on the tree longer. Apple seeds turn from white to brown when the apple matures.   Leave a few on the tree longer and don’t harvest them all at once. See if you can push the sugar content higher by leaving them on the tree longer.

A couple years ago I sent you a picture of a crispy leaf from the tree.  The tree did not look too well.  Your recommendation was the Eastern Red Bud tree was not acclimated to our environment and to get a Western Red Bud tree or another tree.   My post on eastern redbud Second post on eastern redbud Eastern redbud after following a landscapers advice and deep water it pushing salts below the roots After paying for the tree and having the hole dug and planted I decided to give it another try.   A landscaper told me later that the  tree does not like our salty soils and to leach the soil around the tree once a month.   As you know that pushes the salt below the root line. The tree perked up after I started doing that.  Here is a picture I took this spring.  Earlier in the spring the tree was filled with pink blossoms.  So that’s my success story.